


The Watcher from Above

by eridiated



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Flashbacks, Grief/Mourning, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 16:52:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3657978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eridiated/pseuds/eridiated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This work solely focuses on grief. I wanted to make a work that made sorrow tangible or even palatable for the reader. Jack grieves over the loss of his daughter and relives a happier moment. This is an attempt at a feel fest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Watcher from Above

**Author's Note:**

> This is really only about the title, but -- Hyperion means "Watcher from Above." Angel watches the vault hunters by way of an orbiting satellite. Seeing that this was a work about her, I thought that it might be fitting.

Dead man's body on the floor. The smell of spent ammunition hanging in the air. The sanctuary was quiet. The eridium beneath the metal ducts stagnated, no longer surging with constant flow. He had put his new battery to work. Damage control was underway.

Jack stepped over Roland's still body on the floor and crouched down next to it. A perpetual blankness plagued his own face, even in his voice as he responded to the workers who were securing Lillith. She could charge the damn thing now. It was her problem now.

He shoved a finger into the bullet hole in the dead man's chest. The corners of his dissimilar eyes pulled tight with curiosity, with gross interest.

"I warned you. I gave you a chance and you didn't take it," he wiped the cooling blood on Roland's cheek and he gave it a few firm taps. "This is you're own fucking fault, kiddo." He found the ECHO on Roland's carcass and tossed it on the floor behind him. Jack wanted to take anything and everything from this god damn child murder. Take everything from all of them.

Jack's stained hand met his forehead, thumb and index split just enough to apply pressure to each side of his forehead. He wanted to look over. She was just a little bit away. Green and blue teased at the edge of his peripheral to look. To confirm.

"Sir, do you want to start with arrangements?" A labcoat clad Hyperion employee was standing with a clipboard in hand. Jack didn't hear her. He wasn't even in this room. All of his senses drowning in fear. None of this was real. This couldn't be real.

"Jack," a calm and comforting hand rested on Jack's shoulder, and the technician joined the CEO on her own haunches next to him. Most employees knew that touching Handsome Jack would be an action met with consequences. None of them good. This was a different though. This was greatly different.

"Yup--yeah, I'm here," he responded, not even properly. He laced both of his hands together, his fingers interlocking deliberately. Jack stood up and pressed his folded hands to his forehead, neck craning back as he looked up. His lips taught. Wide in a grimace.

"You can leave," his voice had an unfamiliar lilt, making it sound more like a question. Some of the other lab technicians were beginning to move beyond where Jack was standing. The one at his side with the clipboard shook her head at the crew and started waving them back to her position.

"We should leave," she said and she got it. No one needed to be here for this. "But, ma'am--" "No, we need to leave now," she assured and motioned to the door with her clipboard. "Especially now, and quickly."

It wasn't until after the shuffle of bodies and the doors closing did Jack shift at all in his stance. This was uncomfortable. This was absolutely foreign. The tightness in his chest and the sickness in his stomach was begging to be addressed.

Jack fixed his hair and left a dark red trail in the pocket of grey. Then he looked. Not at her, but just enough in her direction. Just enough to see her legs. Not chubby little sandal clad legs that ran with reckless abandon in the grass. They were older, and barren of life.

He could feel the bile rise in his throat and he quickly looked away, hand fixing itself over his frowning mouth. It was the only way he was going to keep it down. The only way to keep it together and stay in control. He scowled, curiosity holding his heart ransom. His babygirl was on the ground. Any fatherly instinct left in him wanted to pick her up and tell her everything was going to be okay.

It wasn't. He knew it. Jack could taste it in his mouth and smell it in the air. He looked again. Just enough to see the blue in her eyes. Uninhabited by life. The color of his neck and forehead finally matched the fairness of his mask. "Aah, God.." He whimpered, gagging on suffering.

Jack could only manage a slow pace towards his daughter's body. He forced a few more steps and turned away to pace in place. Another somber noice and his hands fixed to the side of his head. Jack was beside himself, unglued. He was desperately trying to keep himself together. One last pause to adjust to the growing pain and realization, he came to her side. He knelt down next to her and touched her.

She was still warm, and it sent pangs through his chest. His eyebrows knitted together after he wheezed at the ache in his heart. "My babygirl.." he whimpered, lifting her upper body into his lap. Seated on the ground, he propped her head and dark brown hair on his thigh. Brushing errant strands away and out of her mouth, he looked at her still face. Her still blue eyes.

If he could do it again, he would have done it better. Jack recalled those bright blue eyes looking up to him. She would sit in his lap and draw. Boxes of crayons creating a colorful landscape across the desk.

"Look, Daddy," she beamed, pointing a waxy finger to the printer paper next to the stack of documents occupying most of the space.

"What'd you draw me, pumpkin?" he asked, unable to hide his pride at the joy seated on his lap.

"It's you, duuuh," Angel replied, with a giggle. She thought it was obvious by the exaggerated curl on the stickfigure's forehead, the clearness of the blue-green eyes.

"Ah-tutututut. We don't talk to adults like that, now do we?" Full on Dad-mode had been engaged. Jack gave her one of those disciplinarian looks and set the file in his hand down in front of him.

"I'm sorry, Daddy. I didn't mean to," Angel spoke with an obvious hint of remorse. With her head ducked down she moved to leave his lap, starting to push his arm away from her waist. Shame weighing down on her little shoulders.

"Now, wait a minute," Jack insisted, already forgiving the little transgression. It was inevitable that his wit would have been passed down to her. He expected at least some snark every once in a while. "That's a very good picture, Angel." Jack's other arm snuck around her, pulling her just a little closer to his chest.

"Daddy doesn't look like that anymore, though," he remarked, a finger pointing at the face of the little crayon stickfigure smiling on the paper. Angel craned her head around, using her little arms to push away from Jack just enough to get a good look at his face. She was giving him a discerning look, crystal clear eyes focused on his face.

"Yeah, you do!" her face screwed up into a smile as she laughed once more. Angel certainly didn't see him for his mask. He couldn't help but look a little surprised, "I have a mask now, babygirl, remember?" He stuck his fingertips into the dark hair on the crown of her head, mussing her hair with a pained smile.

Her little body twisted around just a little further to throw her arms over his shoulders, squeezing him as tight as she could. "But Daddy, you're always gonna be pretty!" Jack winced. Maybe at the mixture of squeezing and the not so proper adjective.

"Handsome, Angel. I think that's the word you're looking for," he laughed, watching her carefully as she backed away from her close proximity. Angel huffed and rolled her eyes at his correction, indicating that she could really care less about the formality of proper adjectives. The flatness of her palms found his cheeks. She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the bridge of his nose.

"I love you, Dad," Angel beamed, her happiness was utterly contagious. "I love _you_ ," Jack replied, fixing the portion of choppy fringe that was sliding across her forehead, settling in her eyes.

Jack whimpered. He tightened his mouth shut, shoulders lurched forward as he bent over the lifeless body in his lap, still unable to look at her more than just a few moments. He knew if he so much as breathed it would break his resolve. Jack's free hand lifted her head up, tearing his eyes off the roof of her sanctuary, and buried a kiss into her forehead.

Grief overcame him. It wracked his body with a shudder and he began to rock her body in his arms. Sorrow escaped his lungs in a smothered wail and bounced off the walls.


End file.
